I would like to offer my thanks and appreciation to this forum in
helping my education in this endeavor. While I have played VP for
several years now, I was always in the mindset that the best I could
do is minimize my losses by playing good games fairly well. Since we
are 3 hours away from a casino area (La), we have never thought
ourselves as ever being able to get to the "long run" where our play
would begin to approximate the theoretical returns. Playing close to
break even with comped rooms, meals and entertainment more than
satisfied us. While I would read Jean Scott and Bob Dancer (and
several others) harping about playing games that had positive
expectations, I could never find pay schedules that would do that.
Generally, the best one could find is 9/6 Jacks. Cashback is common
here and generally averages .25% for VP in the several casinos,
including a Harrah's property. Bounceback always seemed iffy and,
since it had an expiration date, sometimes was not used due to the
distance. However, a December promotion by that Harrah's property
suddenly turned the light bulb on for me. In essence, they offered
$450 bounceback for 7500 base reward credits earned during December,
which works out to .6%. Additional credits earn bounceback of
only .25%. Our first trip there in early December earned us a normal
bounceback of .2% In essence, although the game itself has negative
long term expectations, the sum of the cashback (.25%), promotional
bounceback (.6%) and the normal bounceback (up to .2%) puts the play
well into positive territory.
My thanks is extended to Jean, Bob and the others that continue to
preach that positive plays (taking into account all cash factors) are
there; one just needs to be aware and looking for them.